Watchlords

In-Depth - A Guide to the Depth Gauge Watches

In-Depth - A Guide to the Depth Gauge Watches

Posted: July 16th 2018, 1:35pm

by koimaster

If scuba diving is a popular recreational sport, it is a dangerous activity that needs to be properly prepared and monitored. If a diver ascends too quickly, this can lead to decompression illness that can be painful and life-threatening. As depth increases the physiological effects become greater. A reliable dive watch and a depth gauge are essential pieces of diving gear designed to monitor depth and track the duration of an underwater adventure. Both variables are needed to use decompression tables. Traditionally, divers used a dive watch and a depth gauge to calculate decompression time at given depths. Although many divers today choose to dive with a computer, some still use a mechanical depth gauge, even if only as backup.

A handful of manufacturers have developed watches incorporating a mechanical depth gauge, starting with Favre-Leuba, Nivada and Aquadive in the 1960s. For practical purposes, these depth gauge watches were designed to substitute stand-alone depth gauges (or dive computers). These rare models and their engineering are fascinating… and you do not need to be a diver to love them!

From a technical perspective, several solutions have been used. Here are a few examples of watches fit with a depth gauge (bear in mind that we only cover mechanical watches at MONOCHROME and the list of models featured is not exhaustive).